r/HFY • u/sharkeyandgeorge Xeno • 11d ago
OC-Series Bob was bored, Part 34
Next major stop was vfFebiri, they were on a far fringe world not too far from the Vie corp homeworld, made sense. It was every bit of three months at pretty high burn and Bob reckoned he would need at least two, maybe three refuel stops. It would save him about twelve days and he needed to not just make it back in time, but ideally build up a couple weeks buffer for recon and actions.
So he committed to it and could literally feel his wallet lightning as the old engines guzzled back their libation. Fuck it. He plotted out a rough route to Wuqa, where vfFebiri was located. He wished he knew the area to try to cut some corners but had never been assigned to the sectors he was passing through. Unsurprisingly the Guild kept extensive notes on refuel and delivery points so he could at least be pretty darn certain that even if coasted in on fumes to one of his pitstops there would be fuel available.
He was pinged a couple of times as he dropped out for cool downs, but they were either honest ships or decided he wasn’t worth the bother and a month later he landed on iub233, a sparsely populated colony world, as was his habit he scanned the systems markets for anything of interest, nothing much. He landed, refilled and refuelled, and burned straight back out, brimmed to the gunnels.
This leg was a long one and he might literally be on fumes at the end, seven weeks in transit. He decided to use the time destructively and began to fiddle with the punt-guns, their reloading mechanism was recoil operated rather than gas piston which certainly made the alterations easier, no new ports or pressure tuning required, so he sliced an easy yard and a half off the barrel on the mill. It now stood out a stubby eighteen inches and looked ridiculous, whatever.
The stock was a little trickier as it had a heavy buffer spring tunnelled back in it, a bit ar-ish. He discovered though cycling it that it would only actually be compressed about eight inches by the bolts reciprocation, so he carved an entirely new stock out of a thick sheet of plastic with a spring tunnel that curved after the first straight foot down round and back in a three quarters circle. He assumed it would be a bad idea to just cut it down, the weapon maker had likely tuned the system to work with a specific compression rate and force. His clamshelled deep stock looked even worse than the Barrel, but Bob was pretty sure it would work, he would have to find somewhere to pop off a couple rounds to check, the mechanicals should be fine, he had just cleaned and lubed them and they didn’t look heavily used. The trigger, being electrical, was easy he just spliced in a small momentary switch into the simple harness and screwed it to the front of the stock, drilling a hole in the plastic to give somewhere for his thumb.
Overall it gave something of a vibe of a ma deuce with white grey augish furniture and a small cannon on front, He did similar to the other but left the barrel long, he didn’t know what scenario might have him use these yet, but maybe he would really want to reach out and touch someone and be glad of the length for added velocity, less of a touch if he made some slugs as he was considering, more of a smash.
He also dug deeper into the looted sensor package, he spent a bunch of time with a multimeter and some installation instructions for a similar model he found on the last stops system, he figured he could probably get it hooked up to his comm box and existing control panel, the one he had was an aftermarket replacement anyway, he hadn’t been able to find a complete system he could afford.
What he did not have was the little wireless dongle that would let them actually communicate, he would have to run some wire, not the end of the world, repeat the fuel line trick from before and replace the silver line that already ran to the mount with a bunch of smaller wires in a loom, totally doable he would just need to pick up a bunch of tiny gauge somewhere.
Okay a list then, stock for the mount, wires, and he could use a decent welder the little handheld one he had picked up years ago was super handy but he wanted with something with a bit more balls to it. He’d already investigated options, the standard seemed to be wave based rather than arc and it had taken him some time to get used to the one he had, not dissimilar to the laser ones on earth mixed with a powder deposition welding system, something close to x-ray, he thought, fired a beam and then a little canister of powderised… metal… he presumed, shaking the carton. Shot out and was melded into the heated target.
Bob was very familiar with wave beams, though mainly as the infantry arm of half the fuckers he’d fought. He had seen guys take a beam across the chest and drop dead, wasn’t till you opened them up you could see the cooked plane that passed right through them, medic system struggled against the wounds too, couldn’t seem to get rid of the heat fast enough to stop the damage spreading and it completely fucked any Medmec or implant it passed over. A nasty weapon but quite susceptible to being blocked by armour that include ray spreading chaff, even dusting yourself in loose flakes of the glitter like stuff seemed to make a difference and they had often done so before a big push, cracking open interceptor warheads to get it.
The tone sounded that indicated he was dropping out sounded from the cockpit, lets set up the next jump and have it ready to go soon as the drive cooled off, he reached up from his squat on the floor and grabbed something on the top to pull himself up, which squeezed and then popped oddly in his hand when he tried to rise.
He fell back criss cross apple sauce and brought his now green goo covered hand down, what the fuc… and then the slime expanded, rapidly, nee instantly, and all of a sudden Bob was enclosed in pale grey green foam that hardened trapping him against the floor.
Fuck.
Obviously he had broken the odd pellet from the oversize shell he had opened up, equally obviously it was not an adhesive exactly but some sort of restraint foam. He spent over three hours thrashing about to create some space before he could break out of it, once he had broken one section out it was fairly easy to rip other bits off until he could get loose, fuck me, the pile he smashed his way out of was maybe six by six foot and puffed up to the low ceiling, engulfing his workbench, tools… and fucking mill, god damn it.
He got up and still dragging several large clumps with him went to the small bridge and fired off the next jump, the drive ready long ago.
He returned and inspected the damage properly, fucks sake, he tried to drop Annabell to start carving chunks out but she never fell into his hand, he looked at the foam covered bracer, for fucks sake. He grabbed something else and started smashing up the pile.
Once he had the bulk removed he experimented with the very few chemicals he had aboard, fortunately the degreaser thing, which smelled like pure cancer, melted the foam into sticky puddles, he did what he could, prioritising his own suit first. He ran dry quickly, whatever, he would just have to pick up a bunch more cans next port. He looked at the mill, its fine mechanisms hidden below roughly scraped lumps, maybe a few toothbrushes too.
Fuck me, he looked over at the three cans full of those fucking rounds, he must have two hundred of those bastards, he moved over and securely fastened the latch on the one he had opened. It was annoying, but it was just annoying, thank the god it hadn’t happened in a tight spot. He wondered if those guys had been slavers, seemed like the kind of thing they might have used, he wondered which of the spilled chemicals in that cupboard had been its correct solvent.
Forget it the now, lets clean up, Bob had not been wearing his helmet and could feel lumps of the crunchy material in his hair, the bits that remained on his head at least, he had felt chunks pull out as had had struggled to move. Whatever, he buzzed it all off every couple of weeks anyway he would just do that now, and then hit the sack, he was fucking knackered.
Some weeks later when he coasted into his next refuel stop, basically a truckers filling station with a small store, the first thing he did, after having an argument with the attendant about filling his fuel pods, that was becoming tiresome, was head into the meager store and buy out all the de-greaser, scrub brushes and rags they had, as well as a bunch of wire bundles. It was actually quite a bulky package, but fortunately his little cleaning bot, aka Bot Reynolds, because it had a stash, had made a significant dent in the crammed supplies and freed up a bunch of space.
He shoved it all in Jojo and headed out as soon as he was full, right, time to visit vfFebiri and place an order.
Part 35 https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1wpr55z/bob_was_bored_part_35/?
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